Tag Archives: olympics
Presidential debate sparks massive Twitter activity, related social content can drive traffic
Twitter announced on Wednesday night that the presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney was the most popular political event in the microblogging site’s history. For marketers, sharing interesting content related to any event driving major activity on the web can help boost brand awareness and attract prospects. Obviously, there’s an element of sensitivity associated with political content, but sharing site content that applies trending news to an industry can help increase timely traffic. Moreover, the popularity of Twitter during such important events for Americans demonstrates the overall value of a presence on the website. Whether it’s with organic social media marketing or Promoted Tweets, finding a way to engage and convert relevant users can drive leads and sales for companies. The trends companies can leverage for Twitter appeal extend beyond political events Continue reading
Gold medal content marketing opportunities: Americans flock to social media for Olympic updates
A report from AYTM Market Research confirms what many suspected: Americans plan to use several different technologies to keep track of the ongoing London 2012 Summer Olympics. The games officially kicked off last Friday with the opening ceremonies at Olympic Stadium in East London. Brafton has previously reported that marketers can use the popularity of the international sporting event to drive relevant traffic to their website. Moreover, NBC Olympics and Twitter partnered with a hashtag page aimed at providing a hub for Tweets related to the event, giving added reach to brands that reference the event in content. Continue reading
Internet marketing news roundup, July 20
The first half of 2012 has been a busy one for social media marketers and the platforms themselves. Between new features, massive user growth and even new networks fighting for a piece of the pie, both consumers and marketers have more options than ever in terms of finding the right social mix. According to a study from the Association of National Advertisers, social media marketing is now the norm among American businesses. Ninety percent of companies said they are using social media as part of a broader web marketing strategy, with most organizations active on multiple platforms. Brafton highlighted the ANA study, reporting that 96 percent of those using social maintain a Facebook presence, while 89 percent are active on Twitter. LinkedIn (49 percent) and Pinterest (33 percent) rounded out the top four, and 14 percent said they use other networks as part of their social content strategy. As part of the study, many marketers also said they have moved into the next layer of social adoption and strategy, actively looking for more robust metrics for their campaigns. Generating traffic from these sites by sharing links to website content is a good indicator of success, but many are looking at time on site and conversions driven by social to truly gauge its value. Given Facebook’s appeal to so many businesses, it’s clear that they expect frequent engagement and quantifiable results from their presence on the site. A report from comScore, relayed by Marketing Land, showed that prospects are certainly active enough for businesses to see strong performance. The average user spent more than 400 minutes on Facebook in June, according to the research firm. This represents a strong surge in terms of Facebook use, as comScore reported the first few months of 2012 resulted in minor dips. Brafton reported that many marketers are at a crossroads with their Facebook campaigns. While the site is clearly the industry leader, the growth of Twitter, Pinterest and other networks has forced many to spend less time on the network. June’s lift in consumer Facebook use may cover up some minor issues with the site, however, as the 2012 American Consumer Satisfaction Index found, the network resulted in the lowest satisfaction rating of any included in the survey. Facebook received 60 out of 100 points in the poll, finishing far behind its competitors. Google+ scored the highest of any network with 78 out of 100 points. Brafton reported on Wednesday that Google+’s success is especially interesting given its struggle to take off since it was launched more than one year ago. Moreover, Twitter and LinkedIn scored ratings of 64 and 63, respectively. Despite boasting larger user bases than Google+, it’s clear that many users on both platforms are unhappy with their experience. One network not included in the poll was ROCKZi, a new social news platform from underdog search company Blekko. In recent months, Blekko has been one of the more interesting emerging search engines, and the launch of ROCKZi represents another intriguing move. On Tuesday, Brafton detailed some of features of ROCKZi. Like Blekko, the platform is entirely user curated, with news boards moving content up and down the page based on user interest. The boards are currently limited to popular news topics, but the company said it plans to rollout more as its matures. Additionally, it said users will soon be able to create customizable boards. While no marketing element was announced, ROCKZi represents a strong opportunity for businesses to share their content and drive traffic. Moreover, the movement of their content up and down boards can give marketers some insights on which content is generating the most buzz. Given the reliance of content marketing on social media, marketers should be sure to use their presence on Facebook, Twitter and other networks to see which content they need focus on delivering. Social and SEO have also become increasingly intertwined and all those happy Google+ users got even more utility from Google this week, with the launch of a Share button on Google SERPs. Product manager Sean Liu detailed the feature on his own Google+ account, saying users can now click the Share button to deliver content they enjoyed from a SERP directly to their Google+ page. Making it easier for users to post content to Google+ will likely help the company drive activity on the site. Brafton reported on Thursday that those who click the Share button will also see a prompt allowing them to post comments along with the links they share. Social’s use continues to grow, which makes it even more important for marketers to make it a valued element of their strategies. A report from American Express suggests that companies using social sparingly or neglecting their campaigns could see consumer frustration grow frequently. Highlighting the study, Brafton said that 46 percent of consumers access businesses’ social media marketing campaigns to complain or otherwise express their frustration, which means marketers must be ready to respond to this feedback on the networks. While the uses of social continue to diversify, search is following suit. Unlike the results of ACSI’s poll for social networks, search engines appear to be doing much better. ACSI found that most Americans are largely satisfied by the results they receive from search. Google scored the highest in the survey, with an 82 out of 100. However, Bing, Ask.com and Yahoo rated strongly, as well, with an 82, 80 and 78, respectively. Frequent changes to search algorithms targeted at improving user experience seem to be achieving their goal. Furthermore, SEO strategies should be centered on developing high-quality website content that will succeed no matter what Google, Bing and others have up their sleeves for the next round of updates. An IPA Bellwether poll of marketers found that many may be looking to do just this, with SEO making up an increasingly large portion of budgets. Brafton reported that organic search marketing accounts for 7.4 percent of investment, up more than two percentage points from their previous study. Brafton has often urged marketers to include trending topics in their websites and news content marketing efforts are a strong way to give campaigns a timely boost. While it’s critical that content writers find the strand to tie the their industries and the events together, doing so successfully can be a major win for web traffic. With the summer Olympics set to begin in London in seven days, next week may be a good time for marketers to try their hands at weaving trending topics into their web content. Continue reading
Be the content marketing gold medalist in your business
With the summer Olympics in London just around the corner I thought marketers may find it useful to understand how they can “take home the gold” for web marketing efforts by effectively championing the cause of content marketing for digital and brand marketing strategies within their organizations. While “content marketing” is a relatively new buzz word for many, “content is king” is a phrase adopted and utilized by marketers since the emergence of Web 1.0. Every week Brafton’s business development team speaks in depth to dozens of marketers from businesses of all sizes and shapes about their current and future online marketing strategies, I’m always amazed that so many of the folks I speak to have little to no understanding around how a quality content strategy should be at the root of every single digital channel they are using to drive traffic and increase conversions on their websites (including SEO, social media, email marketing). Common obstacles to content marketing investment Just as amazing to me though are the Marketing Associates, Marketing Managers, V.P.’s, and CMO’s I speak to who fully understand how vital content is to their success yet still can’t find the resources to build the company blog that hasn’t been updated in several months, or get the time or support to write consistent, targeted industry articles and white papers, or find the time to create and share good relevant content on their Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin accounts. When I pose the question, “If you know it’s so important to create unique content why aren’t you doing it?” the answer invariably is some version of what we here at Brafton call The Content Marketing Challenge – “I don’t have the time to do it myself because I am too busy,” “it’s impossible for me to wrangle up my engineers or sales reps to contribute a blog post,” “I don’t know what to write about…” Another thing I hear consistently is that a marketer is bought into how important a content marketing strategy is to their success but they tell me, “my boss doesn’t understand why original content is important or why we should allocate a portion of our budget in this direction.” Let’s think about this response for a second. Our marketing champion is most likely spending time and money on SEO, social media, and email marketing initiatives under the direction of this same skeptical boss. In the world we live in today, these channels are all fueled by original and quality content, but our would-be champion still can’t get that boss to buy into a content marketing strategy … even if they all acknowledge the struggle they have in creating it frequently! In a sense this is like buying a beautiful new sports car, putting the best tires on it, washing and waxing it, but not being willing to fill the tank with oil and fuel consistently so that it drives well. Not investing in content marketing when you’re running SEO, email and social campaigns is like buying a beautiful new sports car, putting the best tires on it, washing and waxing it, but not being willing to fill the tank with oil and fuel so that it drives well. In many cases though, this pushback our champion receives is directly attributable to the need for her to build up her toolbox to sell the concept and value of a content marketing strategy to superiors. With Olympic season upon us, marketers have to be ready to flex their content industry acumen if they want to retain their business’ competitive edge. More than two-thirds of respondents to Brafton’s content marketing poll said they are increasing their content creation and updates. If you’re the marketing coordinator, content manager or marketing associate looking to get your company into the content marketing game, here is a helpful guide to take you all the way up to the gold medal in being a content marketing champion in your business. The Bronze: Understand that content is vital to your success In my experience marketing coordinators and associates serve as “first line of defense,” if you will, in vetting potential strategies, vendors and services. These are also typically the individuals who would actually use any new products or services in order to: Maintain the company blog Manage social media Manage PPC campaigns Link build Drive SEO As such, the marketing manager/coordinator/associate usually feels the “content marketing challenge” first-hand and, as a result, becomes the initial champion internally. Of course, a major stumbling block may come with the question: “How do I convince my boss that we need content without looking like I am incapable of doing my job?” The first thing your boss and superiors need to understand is that creating content is not easy, and is in many cases a full-time job. To expect that one individual in marketing can effectively produce consistent, high-quality content while also managing the remainder of their job duties is simply unrealistic. (Read more in our related blog about knowing when it’s time to call in content marketing experts.) Explaining how a good content marketing strategy will help every segment of the marketing strategy and website perform better, while not sacrificing one single employee’s bandwidth, is the first step to making the introduction. Consider the vitality of content to the various campaigns you manage: From an SEO perspective, consider the need for quality websites to win rankings. “Our site quality algorithms are aimed at … reducing the rankings of low-quality content.” – Amit Singhal, Google Fellow Consider the proven effect of content on SEO, with more than 90 percent of marketers citing content creation as a top search optimization strategy. (See Brafton’s related infographic – and show it to your boss!) Recognize content will build organic traffic through gradual keyword progression and link building. Remember that content is what powers social shares, with one in five social media messages including links to website content. Content builds social interactions and develops fan bases on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to turn them into lead nurturing tools and revenue streams. Fresh content is necessary to maintain or turn around email marketing campaigns, with stale content being the No. 1 reason people unsubscribe. With this in mind, you can remind yourself (and tell your boss), “This is why we need really targeted, quality content at volume we can’t do ourselves!” The Silver: Show the VP content marketing drives measurable web leads So our fictional marketing manager/coordinator/associate has bought into the idea of why a content marketing strategy is vital to their success, and the viability of the digital marketing strategy as a whole, but how do they get their VP or CMO to buy in as well? The most important thing to understand when selling any product or service up the chain of command is that what’s of importance and value to you may not necessarily be the same things that your superior cares about. Most VPs or CMOs don’t evaluate products on a “feature function” basis, or make buying decisions because its going to make their marketing coordinator’s life easier, but rather on: “How much more revenue is this going to bring us?” “How is this going to increase leads or conversions on the website?” “How is a content marketing strategy going to supplement or support the things we are already investing in?” A good content marketing champion can answer each of these questions or concerns with tangible facts: “Good content will drive more qualified traffic to download our white paper” “Having consistent quality content will drive our email marketing investments” “Having a high-volume content marketing strategy will address the struggles we have had with lead generation and lead nurturing” The Gold: Get CEO buy-in through content-driven market share and thought leadership So all of the pertinent members of the marketing team are in agreement that a content marketing strategy will help in making their jobs easier while also allowing them to meet goals and revenue figures. How do you get the budget approved by your CEO/COO/CFO? At the highest levels of any business, the goals and responsibilities of the chief executives who hold the purse strings are certainly going to be different than most of their employees, but almost universally all care about market share: “How is this service going to build brand?” “How is this going to position us as leaders in the market?” “How is this going to drive revenue?” The good news is that content marketing is highly effective for each of their points: Building brand awareness Bringing in more quality leads Driving on-site conversions While selling content marketing to your boss or CEO may not get you a onto the medal stand in London this summer, the front of a Wheaties box or the cover of Sports Illustrated, it will most certainly deliver results and help maximize your current and future marketing strategies, so go out and get the gold! Continue reading
